The Lodge was built of stone and wood, the high ceilings of the central meeting hall allowing the freshly burning scent of cinnamon and fresh logs to lift high into the air. The group of friends were all gathered under the giant wooden chandlers with their mystical flames each burning a different color high up in the room, and yet everything still colored a whitish yellow light across the whole room.
Across the floor were many thick animal rugs. Two were complete with bear heads, and another was the bigger and thicker skin of a werewolf. Harry stood over by it, looking down at what had once been the skin of a being much like he himself. He found himself concerned with the situation because a werewolf turned back into their respective race once they died which meant that the skin he saw would have to have been taken while the 'creature' still lived…
The building itself was five stories tall, it's main foundation and walls made of stone and held together with mortar. The floors and stairs and roof were all comprised of wood, though. The fires burning from the fireplaces in the main hall (two opposite each other) seemed to keep the building a reasonable temperature.
This far up in the mountain there was snow all over the paths, the lodge, and the few buildings out back. It was a home away from home, the first large hub for many surrounding villages and races from nearby. Even Fiona's starting village was down the mountain and across the forest from where she now was… a Level 20ish Zone that would be too dangerous for her to try and travel back across even if she wanted to.
Out to the sides were places for character to keep mounts and for the lodge's warehouse for storage. The Lodge itself was T-shaped, with the top-most portion being the back facing the mountainside where along that singular hallway on the first and second stories were the pub and all the item shops. The front room was mostly weapons and pictures up on the walls, and the top three floors of the Lodge were for player hotel rooms.
Fiona looked around the group, moving a hand through her platinum blonde hair, her ice blue eyes looking over them all. She couldn't make out the form of Kasper Ghastly too well against the stormy-night picture behind him, but she wasn't as interested in him as much as she was with Selena Aquatica.
"Sean, you don't look like a Mermaid," Fiona said as she stepped over to the young woman with green eyes and red hair, wearing scale-mail that was greenish-gray in color. Fiona put her hands on her hips, and looked her over, thinking that she felt a little bit less out of place not being the only man pretending to be a woman.
"Magic spell," she said with a smile and a shrug. "I've got to recast it once an hour, but that's no big deal," she said, holding out a hand who's fingers each had a golden ring on them. She had a golden-colored Trident strapped to her back and a smile across her face. "I've played a mer-man before, so I went with what I knew from my choices."
Fiona nodded as the two Orcs stepped over to her. They were each nearly eight foot tall, green skinned, with thick abs, and body-builder physique. Each of them had on thick back armour with a battle axe strapped to the back plate there, with thick bronze shoulder pads down the sides. They each had on tight leather pants that looked to be barely held back by their thigh muscles. They each had thick and dark green hair coming off the top of their head. Golda (Tom) had her's in a top-knot ponytail, Dolda (Dan) had hers in pig-tails.
What had Fiona's attention, though, was that neither Golda or Dolda had on any chest or stomach armor, leaving their firm but flattened breasts (due to all the muscle) bare for the world to see. "Well, girls," She said as she smiled up at them, noting she could see their thin thongs just reaching out of their leather pants, "I see neither of you have something to hide."
The twin Orcs looked at each other, then at Fiona, "Speaking strictly out of character," came the voice of Tome as Golda's lips remained still, "Every one of our choices were two woman or man and a woman," Golda's face frowned.
"So we went with the choice of twins," Dolda added, crossing her thick muscular arms under her bare breasts. "But you seem to have made a new character, a female, while preparing to head out on a quest with your wife and daughter," she added while speaking in Dolda's voice. "We've got our excuse… what's yours?"
"Wanted to try something different," Fiona said with a shrug, though it was a lie. The truth was that, regardless of any situation, she almost always chose to play a female character. She had thought she would have to talk Sean into such a thing (as they were friends from work), but it looked like she wouldn't have to with him being a mermaid.
"We can try something later if you want," came Selena's voice as an In-Character Whisper. Fiona turned to look at her, and she just winked. Fiona smirked, but thought she would store that knowledge away for later when Jean and Anna were no longer online.
Harry Baldanish was standing over with Gwen, asking Miss Richardson how it felt to be able to move around normally inside of PHUK. Outside of The Kingdom, Jean was most often confined to a wheelchair due to a hit and run two years earlier while she was a primary school teacher in another state. She could only ever move short distances without assistance before it began to hurt. During the cold seasons of the year it always hurt.
"I'm doing quite well," Gwen was telling Harry. "Part of why I've been playing PHUK for this long is because it gives me such freedom of movement," she said with a smile, taking in all of Harry's form. He was a medium-skinned black male character about six foot in height… shorter and smaller than his real-life quarterback body.
Fiona glanced up and saw that the moon was nearly full as it was… When Darrell's current (and borrowed) character Harry was to be under the full moon's light, he would transform into a werewolf of great size and speed. The problem with that was that PHUK would alter the Player's general visual understanding of the world to cause them to more accurately play-up what their character had become.
As it was, almost no one stayed a were for long, usually only waiting until just before the next full moon to cure themselves. If they didn't, they would see everything as food, a threat, or a mate… and considering Harry was getting friendly with Gwendolyn, Fiona didn't much like that idea.
Zelda Zedkins was sitting at a fireplace, a Dwarf woman who almost had a bit of a beard to her, decked out in leather armour and a giant blunderbuss strapped to her back. She was wearing a lot of cloth satchels and big backpack, perhaps because Dwarves had an early ability to be able to carry more than their usual size could manage.
Fiona stepped over to Zelda to look over her shoulder, though, as the Dwarf seemed to be holding a Nintendo DSi that was colored white. On the screen, however, was not a DS game, but rather little back screen that said 'Option Off' in while letters. "What are you doing?" Fiona asked, watching as Zelda seemed to be actively playing a screen that wasn't doing anything.
"Increasing my Wits and Intelligence rating," she said with a bit of a smirk. "There are games inside of this game, and playing Tetris can really help with your quick thinking… at least the early skill levels of it," she shrugged. "Since we're waiting on Brittany to get off the phone with her parents in real life, I'm just killing time."
"You're just staring at a black screen," Fiona said, "of a handheld device I would have thought was copywritten," she admits, "and totally out of character."
"Oh, you need to go to your Options Screen and activate 'Show Friendly In-Game Connections'," she said with a shrug. "IGC lets you use items from your PC while in the Game since you can't Alt-Tab… but since the developers want you to be able to play the main game first, it also has to do with playing In-Game minigames… like this PHUK version of Tetris. Since my playing the game has to be relayed to you and that might lag your system, the option to see the game is off by default," she explained. "And, yes, it's out of character… but we're not doing anything yet, so I'm killing time… like I said."
"And the copywritten aspect?" Fiona wondered, looking over at Molly O'Brandy. The girl had long white and purple hair down to her heels, wearing a purple and white and black gown. She had small breasts, and her bones were visible through her cloth armor. She wasn't that attractive, which is nothing like how Jean had previously described Brittany Daws.
"Nintendo gets a little slice of funds for you spending more money on using a DSi-like In-Game item and PHUK gets a little bit for for selling a more expensive 'Handhand' than one of their generic ones… so while it doesn't work like a DSi, it does look like one," she said with a shrug. "I can also check my stats and browse the web from the tiny screen instead using the floating text of the default Menu… I find this method less jarring," she shrugged.
"I picked it up in a Mod-Shop inside the Neo Hong Kong Megaplex in Strata City," she noted, working her fingers faster on the buttons of the device. "Only lets you use your default apps… WinAmp, Opera, Outlook, etcetera," the Dwarf smiled, looking up at Fiona. She motioned in the direction of O'Brandy, "Or Skype out to Phone," she said, noting the bat-wing looking cell phone that O'Brandy had to her ear.
"Oh, I see," Fiona said, glancing around. "And who is Lyncha Peck?" she wondered, looking around for the Naga she'd seen earlier. "I feel like I've heard the name before, but it's not coming to me… is that a Character or Player name?" she wondered.
"Couldn't tell… maybe both," Zelda shrugged. "She asked Gwen not to reveal who she really was… just that I think we all are supposed to know her. Dunno if she'd a New Player, Old Player… Character Name, Player Name… what…" she sighed, tapping the screen as she seemed to loose even though Fiona couldn't see the screen. "I have noticed her scales seem to chameleon to the area she's near… maybe she's just blended with the environment so well you can't see her," Zelda looked up and leaned back, looking around. "My perception's not too high either."
"She could fade completely away?" Fiona asked, checking her purse and the pouch around her waist.
"Magic of Video Games," Zelda smiled with a shrug.
"OK!", Molly said, throwing her hands up as she turned off her phone and put it away. "I'm sooo, like, totally sorry about that everyone," she said in her kind of shrill voice. "I'm ready to go."
Gwendalyn Fayn looked over at O'Brandy and put a hand on Harry's shoulder as if to console him. "We were heading to Icepeak Tower," she said, looking around at the group. "Is that still the plan?"